Trump’s basic malfunction is his E X T R E M E narcissism.

That, and he really isn’t very bright. (Evidenced by his 8th grade vocabulary.)

(Not saying he isn’t dangerous. He absolutely is — teetering, wobbling, stumbling (groping), live grenade kind of dangerous.)

But because he has always been such a ‘there-is-only-me’ self-absorbed personality, his delusional reality stresses when confronted by anything that challenges the reality he has constructed for himself.

You mention...

“Couldn’t one reasonably argue that multiple Ugly divorces, business bankruptcies and frequent protracted legal battles reflect “significant impairment”?”

Not really. I mean, think about it. Even if he wasn’t billionaire-level rich, or didn’t have a building full of lawyers, being stupid and not wanting to keep a wife much past puberty isn’t generally something that qualifies someone for a shiny new straightjacket. (Usually it isn’t…)

His seeming ‘instability’ right now has — possibly — more to do with the strain on his capacity to compensate when faced with real life pressures, than it may with a possible deterioration or decompensation of his ‘normal’ psychiatric condition.

As long as he’s king in his world, he’s okay.

(For whatever that means for a narcissist of his magnitude, that is.)

And right now his feeling of being king is threatened. Perhaps for the first really out-of-his-control time…?

Unless there are some other extenuating factors, agendas, and/or players, that would delay his exit, I really don’t see him staying on in this role as President.

Whether he just up and quits, manufactures some excuse (that seems reasonable ‘to him’), or the threat of things revealed that he ‘needs’ to stay hidden forces him to vacate, I’d be surprised if he lasts the year.

In his mind, this was never really about being President — the working part.

This is about his ‘winning' (beating his competition), and gaining more power (control) and money (using the presidency for personal profit and private interest).

And he’s pretty much achieved those goals.

(Even if he were completely and utterly discredited, he will continue to profit — ’bigly’ — for the rest of his life.

(He achieved the ultimate available goal: He made America itself a Trump brand. That will be a life-long cash cow for him.)

But, as soon as the upcoming elections begin to turn the tide of Republican dominance in Congress and the Senate, and democrats (and if we’re lucky, Progressives — sorry, I’m a democrat progressive) gain the majority, he won’t last very long at all.

As regards to authoritarianism…

Trump’s authoritarianism is part of his inherent personality disorders psychology. So that explains Trump.

That America is falling down the rabbit hole towards authoritarianism and oligarchy, demonstrates just how far we have fallen under the spell of doublespeak and (weaponized) propaganda.

This has occurred because of our deteriorating education system over the past 50 plus years.

(Yes, I know that is a simplistic statement. But it is the fundamental reason for our current absence of critical thinking skills, lack of perspicacity, and absolute inability to wisely adjudicate information collated.)

What will save us from our self-determined downward spiral towards collapse — implosion?

Well now. Isn’t that the 60 million dollar question…

If we make this resistance a new civil war, by nonviolent civil disobedience, wherein the majority of Americans are involved, say no less than 200 million, we may have a chance.

If not…? Apathy will once again take us over. And we will eventually succumb to capitalism fascism. And that will be all she wrote.

In the meantime, the damage Trump ‘can’ do if we don’t indict him first and stop him, that could very well be incalculable. And quite possibly irreversible for far too many people.

I mean, after all, dead is dead.

“The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.” — Charles de Montesquieu